Given the discussion in the comments yesterday , here's a GDR-era video Berlin-off. In the red corner, Eastbourne's The Mobiles doing Drowning In Berlin: And in the other red corner, The Passions I'm In Love With A German Film Star - perhaps the sexiest song ever written about a roadie: Buy The Passions - Thirty Thousand Feet Over China The Mobiles - The Best Of...

Sam Taylor-Wood and the Pet Shop Boys (neither of whom I get particularly excited about) are about to release a cover of The Passions' I'm In Love With A German Film Star . As I haven't managed to hear it yet, I'll reserve judgement, but the cover (right) doesn't fill me with hope. Far too literal. Then again, it's on Kompakt , so it might be OK. Aaah, who am I kidding. It couldn't possibly be as good as the original, a sublime and hypnotic track that younger readers may recognise from [...]
I spent most of my Saturday playing the adequate PS2 port of Grand Theft Auto: Vice City Stories . I has the same "expansion pack" feel to it that Liberty City Stories had, although I'm enjoying it far more than I did that game. It's no San Andreas , but it's a decent waste of twenty dollars nonetheless. The game also features a return to licensed soundtrack music, a feature sorely missed in the previous game. There's a very nice spread of retro tracks covering all the expected genres. The pop and wave material [...]